A Limitation of Marx “Capital”
Part 1 of a fundamental reason why it is now out of Date
This article is to highlight a fundamental limitation of Marx’s philosophy of Capital.
We need to do this to understand its relevance to the current environmental, economic, and political problems we are facing, to understand the only way out, which has no indication within the book.
The Complete PDF version of Marx’s whole Capital Book is graciously offered by Professor Mark Biernat for free download at:
We should acknowledge firstly that this is a remarkable book, a testament to a remarkable mind. It is no surprise it is often quoted, the PDF version above comprises 2693 pages.
Ironically, Marx’s view of capital is often used to support the practice of technical capitalism (Distinct from political capitalism).
Technical capitalism, is the consideration of all things of value as capital. It is practiced by all known economical and political systems to date. So it transcends politics, though most politicians might argue otherwise.
In fact that might even be the definition of a politician, anyone who would argue that this doesn’t transcend politics! But I digress.
As I see it, we mostly practice Technical Capitalism unconsciously. The logical result is that we are mostly unaware of the actual physical source of wealth, where it all comes from. It follows with that limitation that we inevitably perceive scarcity where there is none, given the technology we now have at our disposal.
In case you haven’t guessed by now, the limitation I mean is energy.
Nowhere in Marx’s book, is the actual source of energy of all things identified.
Obviously that is fundamentally important for the environment. We have to connect to the real source of all energy, to put things right.
Failure to do that, is complete failure. There is no other solution.
We can quickly confirm this by searching the PDF of the book for the word “Energy”
We can do it quickly by using the advanced search feature in Adobe Acrobat. My own version is Acrobat XI which is quite old now, but similar tools probably exist in other pdf handling apps.
A screenshot of the result is below:
There we see ten entries.
The following sections summarise the context paragraph at each link, numbered one to ten, in order of their appearance in the document, each followed by my own interpretation of the paragraph.
Result 1
‘The term “latent” is borrowed from the idea of latent heat in physics, which has now been almost replaced by the theory of the transformation of energy. Marx therefore uses in the third part, which is of later date, another term borrowed from the idea of potential energy, viz.: “potential,” or, analogous to the virtual velocities of D’Alembert, “virtual capital.” — F. E.’
This is a note made by Prof Biernat (presumed), explaining how he interprets appearances of the word “Latent”, it is an energy based explanation, likening latent to potential, in the concept of potential energy.
Both “Latent” and “Potential” are static scalar quantities. Both may be related to Joules, which is static, stored energy. Neither are referring to the source of energy, which is a flow of Joules, i.e. Joules per second.
Result 2
Same paragraph as above, the second mention.
Result 3
‘For the capitalist who has others working for him, selling and buying
become primary functions. Seeing that he appropriates the products of
many on a large social scale, he must sell on the same scale and
then reconvert the money into elements of production. But still neither the sale nor the purchase create any values. An illusion is here
created by the function of merchant’s capital. But without entering at
this point into a detailed discussion of this fact, we can plainly see
this much: If a function, which is unproductive in itself, although a
necessary link in reproduction, is transformed by a division of labor
from an incidental occupation of many into an exclusive occupation of
a few, the character of this function is not changed thereby. One
merchant, as an agent promoting the transformation of commodities
by assuming the role of a mere buyer and seller, may abbreviate by
his operations the time of sale and purchase for many producers. To
that extent he may be regarded as a machine which reduces a
useless expenditure of energy or helps to set free some time of
production.’
Discusses efficiency in terms of energy expenditure, without identifying the root source of energy.
Result 4
‘However, that which appears as a decrease of the supply, for
instance, to Lalor, is in part merely a decrease of the supply in the
form of commodity-capital, or of the actual commodity-supply; it is
only a change of form of the same supply. If, for instance, the mass
of coal daily produced in a certain country, and therefore the scale
and energy of the coal-industry, are great, the spinner does not need
a large store of coal in order to insure the continuity of his
production. The security of the continuous reproduction of the coal
supply makes this unnecessary. In the second place, the rapidity with
which the product of one process may be transferred as means of
production to another process depends on the development of the
means of transportation and communication. The cheapness of
transportation plays a great role in this question. The continually
renewed transport, for instance, of coal from the mine to the
spinnery, would be more expensive than the storing up of a large
supply for a long time when the price of transportation is relatively
cheap. These two circumstances are due to the process of production
itself. In the third place, the development of the credit-system exerts
an influence on this question. The less the spinner is dependent on
the immediate sale of his yarn for the renewal of his supply of cotton,
coal, etc., — and this dependence will be so much smaller, the more the
credit-system is developed — the smaller can be the relative size of these
supplies, in order to insure independence from the hazards of the sale
of yarn for the continuous production of yarn on a given scale.’
Mentions energy in the context of potential energy, in that this increases with the scale of coal supplied to the point of use. Root source of energy (The actual physical energy in the coal), is not identified.
Result 5
‘The mass of capital which the laborer sets in motion, whose value he
preserves by his labor and reproduces in his product, is quite different
from the value which he adds to it. If the mass of the capital equals
1,000, and the added labor 100, then the reproduced capital equals
1,100. If the mass equals 100 and the added labor 20, then the
reproduced capital equals 120. In the first case the rate of profit is
10%, in the second 20%. And yet more can be accumulated out of
100 than out of 20. And thus the river of capital rolls on (aside from
its depreciation by an increase of the productive power), or its
accumulation does, not in proportion to the level of the rate of profit,
but in proportion to the impetus which it already has. A high rate of
profit, so far as it is based on a high rate of surplus-value, is possible
when the working day is very long, although labor may not be highly
productive. This is possible, because the wants of the laborers are
very insignificant, and therefore the average wages very low, although
labor itself unproductive. The low level of wages will have for its
counterpart a lack of energy among laborers. Capital then accumulates
slowly, in spite of the high rate of profits. Population stagnates and
the working time, which the product costs, is long, while the wages
paid to the laborer are small.’
Energy meant as “Human Energy”, as used also by Nikola Tesla in his paper of the same name. No explicit connection with physical energy.
Result 6
‘Assuming all other circumstances to remain the same, the relative
volume of the merchant’s capital (excepting the small dealer, who
represents a hermaphrodite form) will be in a reverse ratio to the
velocity of its turn-over, or in a reverse ratio to the energy of the
process of reproduction in general. In the process of scientific analysis,
the formation of an average rate of profit appears to take its
departure from the industrial capitals and their competition, and only
later on does it seem to be corrected, supplemented, and modified by
the intervention of merchant’s capital.’
Energy meant again as a driving factor; potential energy. The greater the potential energy, the greater the driving factor, and the more activity resulting.
Result 7
‘It is merely the altered conditions, under which it operates, and
consequently the totally changed character of the borrower, who
transacts business with the money lender. Even in cases where a man
without wealth receives credit in his capacity as an industrial or
merchant, it is done for the confident expectation, that he will perform
the function of a capitalist and appropriate some unpaid labor with
the borrowed capital. He receives credit in his capacity as a potential
capitalist. This circumstance, that a man without wealth, but with
energy, solidity, ability and business sense may become a capitalist in
this way, is very much admired by the apologists of the capitalist
system, and the commercial value of each individual is pretty
accurately estimated under the capitalist mode of production. Although
this circumstance continually brings an unwelcome number of new
soldiers of fortune into the field and into competition with the already
existing individual capitalists, it also secures the supremacy of capital
itself, expands its basis, and enables it to recruit ever new forces for
itself out of the lower layers of society. In a similar way the
circumstance, that the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages formed its
hierarchy out of the best brains of people without regard to estate,
birth, or wealth, was one of the principal means of fortifying priest
rule and suppressing the laity. The more a ruling class is able to
assimilate the most prominent men of a ruled class, the more solid
and dangerous is its rule.’
Individual Human Energy, potential energy.
Result 8
‘Usury and a system of taxation must impoverish it everywhere. The
expenditure of capital in the price of the land withdraws this capital
from cultivation. An infinite dissipation of means of production and an
isolation of the producers themselves go with it. Also an enormous
waste of human energy. A progressive deterioration of the conditions
of production and a raising of the price of means of production is a
necessary law of small peasants’ property. Fertile seasons are a
misfortune for this mode of production.’
Human Energy. Interesting to note in passing that this paragraph is obviously written within a conceptual zero-sum framework. Effectively it is a “Rob Peter to pay Paul” scenario. Kardashev Money explains how this is physically no longer the case.
Result 9
‘While small property in land creates a class of barbarians standing
half way outside of society, a class suffering all the tortures and all
miseries of civilized countries in addition to the crudeness of primitive
forms of society, large property in land undermines labor-power in the
last region, in which its primal energy seeks refuge, and in it which
stores up its strength as a reserve fund for the regeneration of the
vital power of nations, the land itself. Large industry and large
agriculture on an industrial scale work together. Originally distinguished
by the fact, that large industry lays waste and destroys principally the
labor-power, the natural power, of human beings, whereas large
agriculture industrially managed destroys and wastes mainly the
natural powers of the soil, both of them join hands in the further
course of development, so that the industrial system weakens also the
laborers of the country districts, and industry and commerce supply
agriculture with the means by which the soil may be exhausted.’
“Primal Energy” (A new one to me), similar to Human Energy, but primal, presumably. Nothing much to do with physical energy, it seems to me.
Interesting to note this paragraph appears critical of the effects of industrialism. Was Marx really anti-technology?
Result 10
‘In fact, the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and
of external utility is required. In the very nature of things it lies
beyond the sphere of material production in the strict meaning of the
term. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature, in order to satisfy
his wants, in order to maintain his life and reproduce it, so civilized
man has to do it, and he must do it in all forms of society and under
all possible modes of production. With his development the realm of
natural necessity expands, because his wants increase; but at the
same time the forces of production increase, by which these wants
are satisfied. The freedom in this field cannot consist of anything else
but of the fact that socialized man, the associated producers, regulate
their interchange with nature rationally, bring it under their common
control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power; that
they accomplish their task with the least expenditure of energy and
under conditions most adequate to their human nature and most
worthy of it. But it always remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it
begins that development of human power, which is its own end, the
true realm of freedom, which, however, can flourish only upon that
realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is
its fundamental premise.’
Human Energy Usage. No identification of energy source.
But it is interesting to see in this paragraph the concept of, even a definition of freedom. Again Kardashev Money provides this scenario.
Conclusion
The actual source of physical energy, the sun, appears not to have been identified or taken into account in any of the discussion in the book.
But we are not finished yet.
In the production of this article it has occurred that we should search also for “Power”, as that is the Engineering energy function of time we should fairly also look for, to see if Marx made any mention of it in the context of the source of all physical energy. I supect not, but we have to check to be sure.
Ooops. 1077 mentions of power.
Part II coming soon! I bet you can’t wait.
